[meteorite-list] What Does A Real Astronaut Think Of 'Gravity'?

From: James Beauchamp <falcon99_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:32:33 -0500
Message-ID: <345B24A1-C49F-4903-8456-5F737BDAFCD6_at_sbcglobal.net>

The answer to #2 is, YES. Ask Dr. Musgrave :)

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 18, 2013, at 1:23 PM, "Matson, Robert D." <ROBERT.D.MATSON at leidos.com> wrote:

> Hi Paul,
>
> I, too, loved the movie for all the reasons that Garrett Reisman gave
> in the interview. For all the very difficult things that they got
> right, I was a little surprised by some of the small things they
> got terribly wrong -- which would have been trivial to get right.
> Here are a few, some of which were mentioned by Garrett, a few
> that were caught by Neil deGrasse Tyson (who, like me, loved all
> the things the movie got right!), and some that are my own. SPOILER
> ALERT for those that haven't seen Gravity and intend to do so!!
> I've done my best to only mention enough about the flaws to identify
> them. No need to discuss the plot, overall storyline or ending. But
> if you're going to see the movie, stop reading now!!
>
> Here we go:
>
> 1. As mentioned by Garrett, Sandra Bullock's inability to "hold on"
> to Clooney in a particular scene. The only way this scene would
> have made sense is if the end of the tether they were attached to
> was rotating about the station (generating centripetal force).
> But it wasn't.
>
> 2. Was a first-time astronaut medical doctor the best choice for
> performing an EVA and doing a Hubble repair?
>
> 3. I'm not 100% sure of this next one (I would need to see the
> movie again), but it appeared that all the satellite debris
> was orbiting in the opposite direction of ISS -- i.e. east to
> west. Given the country of origin of the debris, this would be
> backwards.
>
> 4. Communication satellites would have been fine in GEO, though
> I understand the plot need for a loss of communication with the
> ground.
>
> 5. ISS and the Chinese Space Station are orbiting at different
> inclinations (ISS at 51.65 degrees, Shenzhou at about 42.8 degrees),
> so they are rarely anywhere near each other. When they are, they
> have huge relative velocities, so there is no way to get from
> one to the other.
>
> 6. Set aside #5 and allow for some "future" Chinese Space Station
> that ~does~ happen to have a very similar orbit to ISS. If you
> want to "fly" from one station to the other roughly 100 km away,
> and you can only do a single propulsive burn to force the
> intercept, the one thing you do NOT do is aim directly at your
> target! Orbital mechanics is counterintuitive, and to perform
> such a rendezvous maneuver would actually require you to aim
> in the opposite direction -- and get the delta-V *exactly*
> right.
>
> 7. If your space station has the misfortune of being in an orbit
> that intersects the general orbit of an expanding cloud of debris,
> you will not cross that debris cloud every 90 minutes -- you'll
> cross it every 45 minutes. Of course, the pace of the movie was
> already lightning fast, so having only 45-minutes between
> episodes of terror may not have fit the timeline the writer
> envisioned.
>
> --Rob
>
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Received on Fri 18 Oct 2013 10:32:33 PM PDT


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